Three 4gb x 2 kits on my 6 DIMM motherboard a good idea?

[edrik]

would it be a good idea to buy Three (3) 4gb x 2 kits (24gb total) to save money instead of buying Two (2) 4gb x 3 kits (24gb total)? what are the risks if there are any?

 

[Wrench97]

x58 boards are tri-channel so running pairs your going to be leaving a memory channel empty, will kind of take the advantage of x58 9xx series setup away.

 

[bobkn]

x58 boards are tri-channel so running pairs your going to be leaving a memory channel empty, will kind of take the advantage of x58 9xx series setup away.

edrik asked whether it'd be OK to buy 3 dual channel kits instead of 2 triple channel kits. That'd be 6 DIMMs either way. No empty DIMM slots.

I've read a lot of claims that there is no such thing as RAM that's optimized for dual, triple, or quad channels. As long as the DIMMs match, there's no problem.

I wish that I could recall the details of an excellent post I read a few years ago on the subject, but the gist of it may have been that manufacturers may use different timings on similar DIMMs in different kits. While the DIMMs are basically the same, the SPD (and XMP) settings would be different for dual or triple channel, as compared to single DIMMs.

That suggests that manually setting the appropriate timings would make the dual channel RAM work properly on a triple channel board. It might require some experimentation, though.

My only personal experience was going the other direction: I tried using 4 DIMMs from two triple channel kits on a dual channel (P67) motherboard. I never managed to get it to run reliably at its rated DDR3-1600 frequency. (The DDR3-1333 frequency was OK.)

I suggest getting the triple channel kits. The obvious choice would be RAM from the Asus QVL (qualified vendor's list) for your P6T Deluxe V2, but that list hasn't been updated since October of 2009. The RAM makers may offer compatibility information. If you're lucky, they'll even list RAM that works when all 6 slots are filled. You may have to back off the timings a little (manually, in the BIOS) to get reliable operation with all 6 slots filled, though.

 

[DeaconFrost]

How long do you plan on keeping thise system before any proc/motherboard updates? I ask because if you do upgrade, you will be looking at dual-channel boards.

That being said, memory is memory. The kits aren't linked in some way...it is just two or three identical chips. So, it shouldn't matter how you acquire the six chips...as long as they are absolutely identical.

 

[Wrench97]

x58 boards are tri-channel so running pairs your going to be leaving a memory channel empty, will kind of take the advantage of x58 9xx series setup away.

edrik asked whether it'd be OK to buy 3 dual channel kits instead of 2 triple channel kits. That'd be 6 DIMMs either way. No empty DIMM slots.

I've read a lot of claims that there is no such thing as RAM that's optimized for dual, triple, or quad channels. As long as the DIMMs match, there's no problem.

I wish that I could recall the details of an excellent post I read a few years ago on the subject, but the gist of it may have been that manufacturers may use different timings on similar DIMMs in different kits. While the DIMMs are basically the same, the SPD (and XMP) settings would be different for dual or triple channel, as compared to single DIMMs.

That suggests that manually setting the appropriate timings would make the dual channel RAM work properly on a triple channel board. It might require some experimentation, though.

My only personal experience was going the other direction: I tried using 4 DIMMs from two triple channel kits on a dual channel (P67) motherboard. I never managed to get it to run reliably at its rated DDR3-1600 frequency. (The DDR3-1333 frequency was OK.)

I suggest getting the triple channel kits. The obvious choice would be RAM from the Asus QVL (qualified vendor's list) for your P6T Deluxe V2, but that list hasn't been updated since October of 2009. The RAM makers may offer compatibility information. If you're lucky, they'll even list RAM that works when all 6 slots are filled. You may have to back off the timings a little (manually, in the BIOS) to get reliable operation with all 6 slots filled, though.

Missed the 3 sets of dual, there is no difference between dual or triple channel sticks other then the packaging each individual stick is the same so as long as he's using at least 3 sticks all's well.

The x58 is the only and looks like the last of triple channel boards the new x79 2011 boards are Quad Channel.

 

[edrik]

Hello guys thanks for the replies, so in conclusion filling up all 6 DIMM slots with any module would still give me tri-channel on my system as long as I keep them by groups of three? But if I were to have only four modules seated on my board would that make it dual channel?

 

[Albuquerque]

If it makes you feel any better, I'm using (2 x 4Gb kit) * 4 = 32Gb on my X79 Intel board without issues. It cannot pull off the XMP profile of 7-9-8-24 / 1T, but I really didn't expect it to with all eight slots populated. So long as you're OK with having to maybe slack the timings slightly, I would go for the money savings.

I saved myself quite a chunk of change doing it this way versus the (4 x 4Gb kit) * 2 = 32Gb method. And I ended up with better timings in the end.

 

[bobkn]

Hello guys thanks for the replies, so in conclusion filling up all 6 DIMM slots with any module would still give me tri-channel on my system as long as I keep them by groups of three? But if I were to have only four modules seated on my board would that make it dual channel?

I think that's the case.

The X58 apparently permits you to mix DIMM sizes. The amount that is common to all of the DIMMs is mapped multi-channel; the remainder, single channel. It's documented in the manual, at least for the P6T Deluxe (not V2) that I've used.

 

[Wrench97]

Hello guys thanks for the replies, so in conclusion filling up all 6 DIMM slots with any module would still give me tri-channel on my system as long as I keep them by groups of three? But if I were to have only four modules seated on my board would that make it dual channel?

Yes that would make it dual channel, but you'll lose the performance advantage you paid for by dropping a memory channel (2 lanes of memory vs 3 lanes).

with any module

I would recommend keeping them matched.